in a thorough manner.

* * * * *

It is not strange that under the present condition of the general mind
the question as to the right of the State to teach religion at the
public expense should be regarded with unusual interest. This question
has been very ably discussed by the Rev. Dr. Spear, whose book upon the
subject,[13] originally published as a series of essays in "The
Independent," is notably thorough and notably calm and judicial in tone.
Dr. Spear considers the subject in both its constitutional and its
equitable aspect, and the conclusion to which he is led is that "the
public school, like the State, under whose authority it exists, by whose
taxing power it is supported, should be simply a civil institution,
absolutely secular and not at all religious in its purposes, and all
practical questions involving this principle should be settled in
accordance therewith." He admits that this logical result of his
argument excludes the Bible from the public school, just as it excludes
the Westminster Catechism, the Koran, or any of the sacred books of
heathenism. But, as he justly says, this conclusion pronounces no
judgment against the Bible and none for it; it simply omits to use it
and declines to inculcate the religion which it teaches. It is difficult
to see how any other view of the case can be taken consistently with the
spirit of our institutions, from the Constitution of the United States
downward; and it is a cheering promise of the disappearance of bigotry,
even in its milder forms, when we see this view set forth by a
distinguished orthodox minister of the Gospel. There still, however,
remains this question in connection with religious toleration and
religious qualifications--Does a religion one element of which is
absolute subservience to the will of a foreign potentate or prelate, the
Roman or the Greek, for example, and which undertakes to deal with a
civil relation, marriage for example, come properly within the provision
for universal religious toleration, or does it not, for the reasons
assigned, assume a relation to the State more or less political?

* * * * *

Captain Whittaker's "Life of General Custer"[14] can no more be
estimated by fixed biographical rules than the meteoric career of his
hero can be compared to the regular and peaceful lives of other men. Not
often, perhaps, does the biographer devote himself with such
enthusiasti